Visiting Hours, 2: Gallant
by tpel
Summary: Gallant visits Romano in the hospital. There's just not enough Gallant-Fic around! Spoilers thru season 9.


"Visiting Hours, # 2: Gallant"  
  
On Friday evening, as Michael Gallant walked down the hospital corridor, he had one question foremost in his mind: "Why the hell am I doing this?"  
  
"Here I am, going to visit somebody I really don't like, and who will probably heap verbal abuse on me for my trouble. I must have some reason for putting myself through this."  
  
A nagging little voice inside his head answered, "Sure you do. You're brown-nosing the boss. Suffer a bit now, it'll pay off later." The voice sounded a lot like Pratt's. Gallant had deliberately NOT told Pratt or Malik, or anyone really, of his plan to visit Romano, fearing just this reaction.  
  
"But it's not brown-nosing," he argued back against the Pratt-voice. First of all, brown-nosing wouldn't work on Romano. He's too cynical to fall for it. Hell, he'll probably THINK I'm sucking up and dislike me even more on account of that. And anyway, from what I've seen, being favored by Romano is not exactly a good thing career-wise. When Romano takes a shine to somebody, he tends to harass him or her even more than normal.  
  
More importantly, that's not who I am. I don't want to suck up to anybody. Gallant knew that others sometimes read his deferential manner and scrupulous politeness that way, and it galled him a bit. "They just don't understand," he told himself, "It's simply a matter of respect."  
  
"Respect for whom? Romano? But you DON'T respect the man. And you shouldn't. He's an obnoxious racist asshole." Hmmm . . . good point. Still, Gallant had had some superior officers in the past that he thought were pretty despicable human beings, yet he had managed to find at least something in them that he could respect . . .  
  
Gallant cut short his inner dialogue as he arrived at the room. He would just have to have faith in his own integrity and believe that his motivations were honorable. As he knocked on the door, he was surprised to hear a feminine giggle coming from inside. 'Could I have the wrong room?' he wondered.  
  
"Come in" sounded from inside the room, in Romano's trademark bark. Gallant entered to find Romano in bed, with the top of the bed elevated. Perched on a chair, with her legs tucked under her, was a teenage girl. She had exuberantly curly red hair, with streaks of bleached platinum blonde, and was dressed in punk attire. She wore a nose ring, but had no visible tattoos.  
  
"Well, if it isn't Mr. Gallant," remarked Romano by way of greeting. "This is my niece, Jessica. Jess, this is Michael Gallant. He's a medical student who has the great fortune of continuing on here at County as a resident next term."  
  
"Hi." Gallant nodded formally.  
  
"Hullo," the girl grinned.  
  
"I . . . uh . . . How are you feeling, sir?" Gallant stammered. He was still trying to put the notions of "Romano" and "family" together in his head.  
  
"Not too bad. I was bored out of my mind 'till Jess turned up. I hate hospitals."  
  
Dr. Romano actually seemed kind of happy - odd, given the circumstances. Gallant hadn't seen him in anything close to a good mood in a very long time, so he wasn't sure how to respond. 'Dammit - instead of dissecting my motives for coming here I should've been thinking of what I would say when I got here!'  
  
Jess sensed the awkwardness of the moment, and decided to make it more awkward. "Pssst - Uncle Rob - he's hot," she stage whispered, "think I can get his number?"  
  
"Mr. Gallant is an officer and a gentleman, Jessie," Romano replied, amused, "I'm quite sure he doesn't date children."  
  
"Hey! I'm sixteen!" she shot back. From her petite size and upturned nose, Gallant would have guessed fourteen.  
  
"Hey Gallant," Romano said, "could you go over to the sink over there? There should be a surgical marker in one of the drawers." Gallant complied, handing him the marker.  
  
"What's that for?" asked Jessie.  
  
"Come here. I wanna write 'Jail Bait' on your forehead."  
  
"No way!" the girl giggled, scooting out of arm's reach. Just then a cell phone rang. All three sets of eyes followed the sound to Jessie's duffel bag across the room. She darted over to answer it, first pushing the 'Caller ID' button. "Aw crap. It's Mom."  
  
"I don't suppose you got your folks' permission to come here?" Romano inquired dryly.  
  
"Hah! But I left Mom a note. Hey, that's better than the last time I came to visit," she replied, pushing the 'talk' button. "Hi-Mom-yes-I'm-in- Chicago-I'll-be-home-Sunday-night-wanna-talk-to-Uncle-Rob?" she said into the phone, all in one breath, then thrust the phone toward her uncle, who was shaking his head vehemently.  
  
Gallant had to fight to keep from laughing as a voice from the phone said, "Robert? Are you there?" Romano mouthed "I hate you" toward Jess, who gave him an evil grin. He reluctantly accepted the phone. "Hi Sharon . . . "  
  
Jessica moved away from the bed toward where Gallant was standing. "They don't get along very well," she explained unnecessarily.  
  
"She's his sister?" Gallant inquired.  
  
"Yeah. But they don't talk much. And my stepfather totally hates him."  
  
Knowing Romano, Gallant wasn't surprised. "Don't you think you should ask your parents before taking off for the weekend?" he admonished mildly.  
  
"Oh, it's only a couple of hours by train and I've been here before. Besides I'm pissed at them for not telling me what was going on. I wouldn't have even known about anything if I hadn't read Uncle Rob's e-mail to my Mom. And all he said was that his arm had to be re-amputated and that he would call me in a few weeks to explain. A few weeks! OK, I guess I'm a bit pissed at Uncle Rob too, but he gets a free pass for now."  
  
Gallant found the girl's ire to be amusingly reminiscent of her foul- tempered uncle. "You read your Mom's e-mail?"  
  
"Well, yeah. Duh." Jess replied, wholly untroubled by the ethical implications of her behavior.  
  
Gallant overheard snatches of Romano's conversation with his sister: "Fine . . . Hey, I didn't know she was coming either . . . No, no, I want her to stay . . . Well, she could sleep at my house, but nobody's there, not even the dog . . . Oh, come on Shar, I think we can trust her not take advantage of the situation and run wild in the streets of Chicago . . . Anyway, for tonight she can stay at the hospital. Maybe tomorrow night she can sleep over with a friend of mine . . . Yes, she's perfectly responsible; she has a two-year-old child . . . I told you, Sharon, I'm fine . . . OK, I'll tell her . . . 'Bye."  
  
"Well, the good news is they're not coming to get you," Romano addressed Jess, closing the phone and handing it to her, "The bad news is you have to call home tomorrow night and Sunday before you get on the train. And your Mom doesn't want you staying at my house by yourself --"  
  
"Did you tell her I'd be happy to sleep at the bus station?" Jess interrupted.  
  
Romano rolled his eyes and continued, "For tonight, we'll find you a cot and you can stay here. I have a friend who will be in tomorrow. Maybe we can cajole her into taking you home with her tomorrow night."  
  
Though Gallant was finding this glimpse into Romano's family life to be fascinating and funny, he was starting to feel like an intruder. Just as he was thinking about how to graciously excuse himself, he heard a knock on the door. "What is this, Grand Central Station?" Romano answered, feigning irritation.  
  
Dr. Klein entered, looking bemused by the presence of visitors in Romano's usually solitary room. "Hello, Robert. I don't mean to break up your party, but I need to check your stitches with range of motion. Actually -- Mr. Gallant is it? You can assist me if you don't mind. For some reason all the nurses and med students seem to disappear when I walk toward this room," he noted with a smirk, "OK?"  
  
Romano frowned, but nodded. "Hey Jess, how about you take a walk?"  
  
"What, I can't . . ." Jessica started to complain, then relented. "Fine, I'll be back in a little while." She grinned, winked at Gallant, and left the room.  
  
"OK, I'll need to unwrap it," Klein prompted. Romano pulled the left sleeve of his robe out from under the covers, and gingerly shrugged his shoulder and stump out of the robe. Klein pushed up the sleeve of Robert's T-shirt, and removed the bandage. "The stitches look good, if I do say so myself," Klein remarked lightly, "Do you want to see? I have a mirror."  
  
Romano shook his head.  
  
"OK, I'm going to have you sit up a little more so I can rotate your arm and check for stress at the amputation site." As Romano used his right arm to struggle to a sitting position, leaning slightly forward, Klein instructed Gallant to brace him upright by supporting his right shoulder. "I don't expect to get a full range of motion this soon after surgery," Klein addressed Romano, "Let me know when you need me to stop."  
  
As soon as Klein began manipulating the stump, Gallant felt Romano stiffen. His breathing was tightly controlled, all muscles tensed, but he didn't make a sound as Klein went through the range of motion exercise. Finally, after a minute or two, Romano gasped, "Stop, Marty."  
  
Dr. Klein stopped immediately. Romano sagged against Gallant, who eased him back down to the bed. Noting Romano's pale complexion and shallow rapid breathing, Klein chided him gently, "You know, Robert, it's not necessary to wait until the pain is excruciating to stop me."  
  
Romano was too winded to reply, so he just glared.  
  
"Well, everything looks good," Klein continued, "but you'll be sore for at least a couple of hours. Keep it elevated. Would it do any good to tell you not to be stubborn about the pain meds?"  
  
Romano shrugged, winced, then looked away. The silence was broken by the familiar buzz of Klein's pager. He checked it, then looked back toward Romano and Gallant, "Duty calls. And here I thought I would be off by seven. Mr. Gallant, could you re-wrap it?" He added lightly, "Dr. Romano can supervise you for that."  
  
"Sure, no problem," Gallant replied as Klein bustled out of the room. Doing any procedure on Dr. Romano was a bit intimidating, but wrapping a well-healing incision was hardly brain surgery. Romano watched vaguely, without comment, as Gallant affixed a new bandage. Upon finishing, Gallant inquired, "That OK?"  
  
Romano glanced at it and nodded. Gallant helped him back into his robe.  
  
"Still hurts?"  
  
"Uh huh," Romano whispered, closing his eyes.  
  
"Well, let me see about elevating it."  
  
Elevating an arm is simple. Elevating an 8-inch stump is a bit trickier. And Gallant didn't know how patient his "patient" would be if he had to fiddle around a lot. He considered asking Dr. Romano how to proceed, but then thought better of it. Romano's eyes were open again, staring vacantly at what was left of his left arm. He seemed very far away, and not in any condition to be giving instructions. So, Gallant thought for a moment, and came up with a plan.  
  
"Dr. Romano, can you slide over toward the left side of the bed?" Romano did so, without question. Gallant handed him the bed controls so he could lower the bed to a more comfortable level. He then stepped out to the nurse's station to get a dose of the pain medication that Dr. Klein had indicated in Romano's chart. "I think you should take that," he said in his best polite-but-firm voice, then, not waiting to see if Romano complied, "I'll be right back."  
  
Gallant returned with pillows and a blanket from the warmer. He noticed, without commenting, that Romano had taken the medication. Gallant raised the railing on the left side of the bed and tucked one end of a thin pillow under Romano's left shoulder. Then he stuffed two more pillows underneath, between Romano's side and the railing, so that the first pillow sloped upward. Finally, he loosely wrapped the warm blanket around Romano's shoulder and arm, draping the end of it over the railing.  
  
As he worked, Gallant occasionally checked to see if the older man was OK with what he was doing, but Romano was uncharacteristically passive and uncommunicative. When Gallant was done, however, Romano revived a little and muttered, "Not bad."  
  
"Not bad for an 'Affirmative Action idiot', huh?" Gallant couldn't resist quipping.  
  
"Oh are you still on about that? Geez, Michael, if you're going to work with me, you'll need to develop a thicker skin." Romano groused.  
  
"Ah, so it's MY fault that I'm offended by your racial slurs?" Gallant responded with good-natured sarcasm. He really did think that Romano's comments were vile, but right at this moment he couldn't muster much anger toward the man.  
  
"Nah," Romano smirked, "If people weren't offended it wouldn't be any fun. I just mean you don't have to take what I say so literally."  
  
"Uh, was that an apology?"  
  
"Not even close." Romano's words were slightly slurred, as the medication started to kick in.  
  
"I'll let you rest," Gallant said, getting up to leave. Romano made a movement with his hand that could have been either a wave or a gesture of dismissal.  
  
Gallant stepped outside the room. As he turned to walk toward the elevators, he heard a voice behind him, "Dr. Gallant?"  
  
He turned around to see Jess sitting cross-legged on top of an equipment cart about 10 feet down the hall, drinking a bottle of Snapple. Gallant walked over to her. The cart elevated the girl so that she was face-to- face with him. He saw concern in her olive green eyes; she didn't seem nearly as self-assured as she had earlier. "Is everything OK?" she asked, "I saw the other doctor leave, then you were going in and out getting stuff."  
  
"It's alright, Jessica," Gallant explained, "Dr. Klein had to move around your uncle's, uh, arm, and that hurt a bit. So I helped him reposition it more comfortably and got him some pain medicine. He's awake now, but he'll probably sleep soon."  
  
"Oh, OK," Jess replied. She hopped off the cart, picked up her Snapple and an unopened bag of M&Ms from the top of the cart, and headed toward the room. "Are you leaving?" she asked.  
  
Gallant nodded, "Yep. I'll request a cot for you at the nurses' station. It's kind of against the rules, since you're a minor, but I'm sure it won't be a problem. They won't want to risk your uncle's wrath." He gave her a conspiratorial grin.  
  
"'Thanks," the girl smiled up at Gallant, surprisingly somewhat shyly, "'Bye."  
  
Gallant watched Jessie enter the room, and overheard her call out, "Miss me?" as the door closed behind her. Then he left for the nurses' station and, finally, for home. 


End file.
